Church Voices

Here is the account of a guy who left Restoration Movement for Lutheranism.

As I read through his account it struck me how different the teaching I’ve received are from what he received. Check out his account of the Lord’s Supper:

In the Restoration Movement, the Lord’s Supper had always been about how well we cleansed ourselves via our sense of humilty before taking the Lord’s Supper. Instead of the sacrament being about how God touches His people, it was about how His people ascend to him through an impossible exercise of spiritual purity.

Contrast that with this from The Faith Once For All by Dr. Jack Cottrell, “The Lord’s Supper likewis is both worship and edification. We take the emblems not only as a memorial to honor our Savior, but also as a means of reminding ourselves that his blood is the only reason we are saved.” Now, I am by no means equivocating a sacramental view to the Restoration Movement, or to this particular statement. What I am saying though is that this view of the Lord’s Supper and the view that the Lord’s Supper is some sort of works based leaping towards God don’t equivocate either.

In fact as I found myself reading over his journey to Lutheranism I found myself thinking that if I were presented with the same sort of faith through the Restoration Movement that he was I would probably be Lutheran today as well.

Sadly, his story didn’t surprise me. Unfortunately, due to the decentralized nature of the Restoration Movement, and taking our theological identity from baptismal regeneration* there is a riptide of works based theology. I believe its fading, but its still out there, and I would rather have someone journey to Wittenberg than flail about in a vain attempt to work their way into the kingdom of God.

*I’m not saying either decentralization or staking our theological identity on baptismal regeneration are bad things, I’m just saying that due to the circumstance and emphasis on each the result has been to allow a works based theology to creep in, which is the unfortunate part.